


Reconciliations

by captainnperfecthair



Series: Brotherly Bonds [2]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, Brotherly Bonding, F/M, Gen, Jim Kirk's childhood, Kid Jim, Kirk Angst, Kirk family reunion, M/M, Starfleet Academy, Tarsus IV, Worried Leonard McCoy, all the feels, mentions of child abuse, overprotective boyfriend Leonard McCoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 05:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9643466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainnperfecthair/pseuds/captainnperfecthair
Summary: Jim Kirk comes back to his and Leonard's dorm room to find Bones in a heated argument with an unknown visitor. It slowly dawns on him that the visitor is none other than his brother, George Kirk, whom he hasn't seen since the elder Kirk brother ran away from home for good fourteen years ago. Turns out George has come to try and make ammends before he departs for the colony of Deneva, but will Jim be willing to put the past behind and reconnect with his brother?





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of a continuation of Repercussions, which is Part 1 of this series. This story will make sense, however, even without having read Repercussions. So you don't need to go back and read that unless you're interested in doing so!
> 
> I dunno why I love to hurt myself by contemplating Jim's sad childhood so much, but I was really in love with the idea of Jim's past colliding with his present and with Bones being an overprotective boyfriend. And so this was written!
> 
> I hope you all enjoy, and if you do, please remember to leave comments and kudos! LLAP

Jim Kirk hikes up the strap of his backpack as he steps out of the elevator and heads down the hall to his and Bones’ quarters. They technically belong to Bones on account of his several degrees he came toting along to the Academy, but Jim practically made them his own since their first week here.

 

It’s a little after noon and Jim’s stomach is growling on account of his having skipped breakfast to make it to his first class earlier this morning. After back to back classes since 7:30 this morning, at last the cadet has a couple of free hours before he has his Foreign Diplomacy class. And since Bones has a similar gap in his schedule right now, Jim plans to drag the grumpy old doc to the mess for a bite to eat. Bones will be pleased. He’s always yelling at the younger man to remember to eat his meals, that Mother Hen.

 

But as he approaches their room Jim stops, alarmed to hear muffled shouts from the other end.

 

“--Like  _ hell  _ he’s going to want to see you!” The unmistakable voice of his boyfriend barks at whichever poor bastard has found themselves on the receiving end of Leonard McCoy’s wrath. 

 

“Leonard--” the other voice, a man’s, begins to say, but Bones quickly and sharply interjects.

 

“That’s  _ Doctor McCoy  _ to you.”

 

“Doctor McCoy,” the man amends, though he does not sound quite as fearful as Jim thinks anyone facing his angry Georgian boyfriend ought to sound, “I understand I haven’t been there for him, but  _ please.  _ I  _ need  _ to talk to him,” he pleads.

 

“Oh,  _ do  _ you?” Oh God, Jim knows _ that _ tone of voice. It comes hand-in-hand with the Eyebrow of Doom. This guy has  _ definitely  _ set him off.  _ Big time. _ “Years without any kind of communication n’ suddenly you’re just  _ dyin’  _ to have a lil’ chat?

 

The other man sighs. “I know I should’ve tried to talk to him earlier, but I just--”

 

“Save your lame excuses for someone who  _ gives _ a damn,” Bones growls.

 

“Please, just let me talk to him. It’s important!” the stranger desperately insists.

 

And now, Jim figures it’s about time he quit eavesdropping and find out who the hell this guy is that’s got Bones all riled up like this. So he punches their code into the access pad and steps inside.

 

Bones and the visitor immediately turn to face him, Bones looking surprised to see him back at their room so soon (because technically, he shouldn’t be back for another fifteen minutes or so, but he’d finished his Xenolinguistics exam early). The visitor, on the other hand, is staring at him so intently that it’s really beginning to creep Jim out.

 

His discomfort, however, is replaced by concern when he notices the blood dribbling down the side of the man’s mouth because sure, Jim Kirk’s no doctor, but he knows what a good right hook looks like when he sees one.

 

“What the hell happened to you?” Jim asks, looking between the sandy-haired stranger and his boyfriend. As he does, he catches the sight of blood on Bones’ knuckles and Jim’s jaw nearly drops in surprise as the dots connect.  _ Damn _ , he thinks. Sure, Bones is a curmudgeonly man who always sounds like he’s ready to punch somebody in the face if they ask a dumb question or invade his personal space too much, but he never actually  _ follows through  _ and  _ does it _ ! The man’s a pacifist! “Bones, did  _ you  _ do that?”

 

Bones isn’t the least bit sorry. “Couldn’t help myself. Bastard deserved it.”

 

Jim stares at him incredulously. Seriously, it takes a lot to make  _ Leonard McCoy  _ of all people want to use his fists. Whenever he’s ready to let his pent up anger loose on the world, he does it through words alone. Words are his weapons and honestly, the words are much more effective. Jim knows this from personal experience. 

 

“Wha--Why?” Jim sputters, still trying to determine what this guy could have done to upset Bones so much that he actually  _ punched  _ him.

 

“It’s okay,” the stranger says, stepping toward him. “I definitely deserved it, Jim.”

 

“How do you--?”

 

Bones watching him anxiously. The stranger--is he a stranger?--is staring intently at him.

 

“I think you know, Jim. Let it come to you,” he replies.

 

Jim’s eyes narrow in scrutiny of the man before him as the pieces of the puzzle come together. The dark-blond hair, the murky brown eyes. He’s probably about five years older than him, just like...And he really does look like…

 

No. No  _ way _ . Jim hasn’t seen  _ him  _ in fourteen years. Nothing made him want to see Jim before. Why would he want to see him now? Why not just stay away for good? He’s been doing a damn good job of doing it so far!

 

Yet there’s something so terrifyingly familiar about the man before him that leaves little doubt in Jim’s mind. “I do know, but...You can’t--You’re not--” he stutters.

 

“Jim, I think you’d better--” Bones tries to interject warily, grabbing his arm and trying to step in between the pair of them, but Jim can’t take his gaze away from the man now.

 

“I am,” he solemnly confirms. “I know it’s tough to believe since it’s been fourteen years, but... God, I couldn’t really see it when we were younger, but now I see exactly what mom was talking about. You look  _ just  _ like him. You look  _ just like _ dad.” He lets out a breathy, nervous laugh. 

 

“Sam.”

 

“Yeah, Jimmy. It’s me,” Sam says hesitantly, trying to be hopeful but obviously not sure how his presence is being received. And oh, boy, does he have reason to be hesitant.

 

The cadet stares at him for a moment, feeling Bones’ grip tighten around his arm. He can feel the nervous energy radiating off of his boyfriend. Jim’s jaw clenches; his fingers curl into tight, white-knuckled fists; his breathing quickens. He feels his heart thrumming louder and louder and-- “You _bastard_ ,” Jim hisses, and Sam’s expression curdles as he realizes that this isn’t going to be the happy reunion that he so naively and wrongly hoped this would be. Jesus, did he actually think that this would go _well_? After the shit he’d pulled?

 

“You  _ goddamn bastard! _ ” he shouts, voice swelling as he swings a fist. Sam doesn’t even try to avoid the blow. It hits him square in the face. It only very mildly satisfies Jim to know that he’ll have a black eye blossoming there shortly. 

 

He hits him so hard that Sam actually topples over, and Jim follows him to the ground only to jump on top of him so he can continue the assault he’s been waiting over ten years to deliver. “You left me!” he shouts, delivering another punch. “You  _ abandoned  _ me!” Another punch. “I was only nine-years-old and you left me to fend for myself against  _ Frank _ !” he shouts, throat raw with rage. But he doesn’t even realize he’s crying until his throat is tightening up to the point where it’s difficult to even get the words out, no matter how much he wants to say them; to spell out for Sam all the wrongs he’s committed against nine-year-old Jim Kirk back in Riverside, Iowa.

 

Suddenly his eyes are burning with hot, salty tears and he swears under his breath. Slowly he rolls off of Sam and backs up so he’s up against the wall before he collapses against it, trembling. “ _ Fuck _ .”

 

“Jim,” Bones calls out to him quietly, voice laden with concern. The young Kirk simply shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair, trying to compose himself. 

 

Squeezing his eyes shut, Jim takes a few shuddering breaths before he’s able to breathe in and out without issue. When he opens his eyes, Sam is only just pulling himself up into a sitting position as he wipes the blood away from his face with his sleeve.

 

“Can’t say I didn’t deserve that, either,” Sam says flatly.

 

“Damn straight,” Bones grumbles, standing near Jim like a bodyguard, ready to jump to his aid at a moment’s notice. 

 

“Jim, I’m so sorry. I really am. I never should have--”

 

The anger swells back up within him, red hot and bursting to be let out. “And yet you did, so you can save your apologies for someone who gives a shit! Do you have  _ any  _ idea what I went through after you left?” He can hear his voice raising in volume as he continues, but he doesn’t care. He’s going to give Sam everything he has. Everything that Sam deserves. Fourteen years of pent up rage. “What Frank did to me? What mom did when she came home to find out what had happened while she was gone?” He pauses, the question rhetorical but the silence allowing Sam time to contemplate the consequences before Jim tells him the awful truth. “She took his side. She said I was too much trouble and that I needed to get my act together again, so she sent me off planet, hoping that it would make me forget about your abandoning us and that it would do me some good.”

 

“They sent you to Tarsus. To Aunt Liza. Shit.”

 

“Yeah, ‘shit’ doesn’t even begin to cover it, Sam,” Jim spits back. “I can’t blame you for what happened there, but one rebellious act was all it took for Frank and mom to send me away and land me there just in time for that horror show. And the only reason I drove the damn car over that cliff was to prove myself to you. Prove I deserved the Kirk name. Not that it matters to me anymore.”

 

“I wish I’d never left, Jim. God, I--I really had no idea! I only started talking to mom again a few years ago, after my wife insisted, but she never told me--”

 

“Hold up, your  _ wife _ ? You’re  _ married _ ?” Jim’s eyebrows skyrocket. 

 

Sam blinks. “Yeah, about seven years ago. It’s um...it’s actually why I’m here.”

 

“You came here to tell ‘im that you got married six years  _ after  _ the fact?” Bones snipes with a look that could kill.

 

Sam shakes his head. “No, I’m here because my wife and I--she’s a Starfleet officer and I’m a research biologist--we’re moving off-planet to Deneva with our son.”

 

“I have a  _ nephew _ ?” Jim says softly, and Leonard is standing beside him, mouth agape as he glances between the two Kirks disbelievingly.

 

“He’s five. He’s named after you,” Sam says, rubbing the back of his neck as he awkwardly stares at the floor.

 

“What the hell kind of game are you playing at, Sam?” Jim demands, wishing the words came out as harshly as intended and not as weakly and shakily as they actually do. It’s as if the righteous swell of anger has been sapped from him, leaving him boneless and numb all over. He meant to sound angry! He  _ is  _ angry! He’s angry that his brother dares to show his face after so many years, act like he’s sorry while he begs for forgiveness, and then so casually drop the fact that he has a family.

 

Fourteen years ago, Sam had moved on with his life, leaving Jim amongst the dusty dirt roads and tall cornfields of Iowa to deal with their horrible stepfather and distant, ever-grieving mother. Despite the absolute failures of their family, Sam had gone off and started a new one.

 

“I never intended to commit to anyone; to settle down and start a family, no less...It all just kind of happened, Jim, and when it did I was terrified and guilty. I didn’t think I deserved any of it. Not after what I’d done to you. But I realized that I couldn’t run away again. Aurelan’s a fierce woman, though. She refused to let me leave and I decided that I would try to do better by him than I had by you.”

 

“Yeah, you got a damn load a’ nerve havin’ a kid when you couldn’t take care of your own brother,” Bones growls from where he stands with his arms folded and a fierce scowl on his face by Jim’s side. As if he can protect Jim bodily and emotionally from where he stands at close proximity to him. It does give Jim some semblance of comfort. Bones’ voice even yields the return of some of Jim’s own resolve. It makes him feel justified for how he’s feeling, like he’s right to be spiteful. This isn’t just the angry, hurtful feelings of an abandoned little Jim Kirk rising up to the surface after being under for so many years.

 

“I realized too late that I’d made a horrible mistake that day fourteen years ago. I’d done you such an injustice, Jim, but I didn’t have the nerve to show my face again. I didn’t think you would forgive me and you had every right not to, so instead I made it my mission to try to do things to make up for it somehow. To convince myself I could be a better person and that doing good and selfless acts would lessen the pain and the guilt.” He pauses, waiting to see if Jim’s going to let his brother continue. Jim just stares back at him, silently taking in what he’s saying, weighing it, mulling it over, trying to figure out how he feels about this. Whether it really changes things or not, no matter how much Sam seems to mean them. 

 

“When I met Aurelan, I found myself ditching the old, unhealthy dating habits I had and truly falling in love with her. I knew I had to do right by her and  _ God,  _ when we had little Jim he looked  _ so much  _ like you that all the guilt welled up in me again. I didn’t think I’d done anything to make up for what I’d done, what I’d left behind and abandoned. But then I thought, “Here’s a way for me to really prove myself.” To make it up to you, in a way. If I could do right by my Jim, somehow it would help me atone for every wrong I’d done by you.”

 

Jim still isn’t sure what to say after all of this. He’s conflicted, feelings churning through his head and his gut unsettlingly. And in the midst of the silence, Bones cuts through it with that rough Southern drawl of his, “That’s an interesting thread of logic ya’ got there.” Arms folded, scowl etched into his face, and brows furrowed, he looks like he’s made his mind up for the most part. But he’s softened a bit, Jim can tell. He figures part of Bones understands, as a father. There’s a deep desire to do right by your own child and the fear that any and all past failures will come back to show that you  _ can’t  _ do right.

 

He, too, feels his anger and bitterness wilting. He closes his eyes, running a hand through his hair as he takes a deep breath and steps away from the both of them as he tries to sort all of the emotions clashing with one another in his head. 

 

“Jim?” Bones gently intones from behind. Jim can feel his concerned dark eyes staring at him curiously as he folds his arms and rests them on the wall, leaning his head against them as he takes a minute to gather himself. Bones, he knows, is patiently waiting but silently wondering just what’s going on in that crazy head of his. But honestly, Jim’s not really sure he can answer for himself at the moment if Bones were to ask him.

 

“I just need a minute, Bones,” he says, so quietly he’s surprised Bones even hears him.

 

“You take all the time ya need, kid.”

 

He closes his eyes and bids away the images of a younger version of himself. The one with long, sandy blonde hair sticking to his forehead in the heat of a summer’s day in Bumblefuck, Iowa as he cries out for his brother, begging him to stay. He bids away the hazy, dream-like memory of himself battered and broken after the worst pummeling of his life from Frank for driving that antique car off that cliff and then pleading with Sam to stay. He urges the distant echoes of Sam’s empty promise that he  _ would _ right before Jim had fallen into unconsciousness.

 

Instead, the younger Kirk tries to think about second chances like the one he’d been given by Captain Pike in a dive bar in Iowa all because of his surname and his aptitude scores, the long list of misdemeanors and jail stints forgotten in the wake of such knowledge. By no means should he have even gotten such a chance. And yet here he was, itchy cadet reds and all…

 

Bones had been given a second chance, too. After losing his father, his license to practice, his marriage, and even custody of his daughter, Bones had enlisted in Starfleet--of all things!--in an attempt to salvage the pieces of himself that remained and give his life purpose once more. He thought his life was over and now here he was, on his way to graduating a year early like Jim and serving once again as a doctor even if it was somewhere in that dark, endless oblivion he once feared. Well, still does fear, actually. But they’re working on that!

 

He figures that they alone seem like proof enough that everyone deserves a second chance. 

 

And Fate seems to have decided that George Samuel Kirk deserves a second chance,too, by having a family and doing right by them. James T. Kirk, however, still isn’t quite sure he’s ready to put his trust back in his brother yet. Or if he’ll ever be able to put any of it back in him at all. Right now, Jim doesn’t quite feel ready to dole out any second chances to his big brother.

 

> “ _Sam, you’re gonna stay, right?”_ _  
> __  
> _ _“Yeah, of course I’m staying.”_

 

He’d been too tired, too hopeful, too naive despite all the intelligence everyone always told him that he was gifted with ever since he can remember, to detect the lie back then. To hear it as the murmured sweet nothing that it really had been. 

 

The panic he’d felt the next day as he awoke in an empty bed, as he searched for his brother until he found the letter...And then the sinking in the pit of his stomach when he read it...Jim still remembers it all too well. It still stings; makes him feel small again.

 

But regardless of how he feels toward Sam, he doesn’t want to be an absent family member for his nephew now that he knows about him. Despite the lack of familial cohesion in his own life, Jim understands the value of family. Perhaps even more than others who have a strong and cohesive family do. He knows its importance and he wants his nephew to have that. He doesn’t want to be the shadow of an uncle that’s never mentioned and never introduced. Nor does he want his nephew carrying around the burden that comes with the name ‘Kirk’ or to assume that there is any sort of burden to be carried for having been named after Jim.

 

No, he wants to make sure that kid never has to deal with the shit Jim had to. That he never thinks for a moment that he’s not good enough to be a part of their family or that he needs to find a way to measure up to his grandfather, his uncle, his father, or anyone else. He wants him to know that he can be whoever the hell he wants to be.

 

And he wants to tell the kid that himself, he decides.

 

“I want to meet him,” Jim finds himself saying to the wall. He senses both Bones and Sam startle at the sound of his voice and as he pushes himself away from the wall and turns toward them, he sees the shock on Sam’s face and the unspoken question on Bones’:  _ Are you sure? _

 

Yeah, he’s sure.

 

“If your son’s here, I want to meet him, Sam,” he says, a little more confidently this time.

 

Sam jerks his head in the affirmative. “Yeah, yeah he is. You can. That’s fine. I--Yeah, I was actually hoping you would want to…” he trails off, mussing his hair and staring at the carpet for a moment before he looks up and meets Jim’s eyes. He gives Jim the smallest of smiles. “I’m glad. I um...Maybe Friday when you’re done with classes for the day you can come over to meet him?” he tentatively suggests. 

 

Jim nods. “Comm me the details. Here, gimme your PADD. I’ll give you my info. I finish classes for the day by 3, so it’ll be after then.”

 

Sam wordlessly pulls out his PADD and hands it to him. Jim silently keys in the information and hands it back to him a moment later. “Thanks,” he says quietly as he takes the device back. Jim hums a quiet, “Mhm,” and then there’s a long, awkward moment where everyone just stands there, feet shuffling and tension sifting in the air like the San Francisco fog: thick, tangible, and a little eerie. 

 

Bones is the one to break the awkward silence, clearing his throat and earning the attention of both Kirks. “Jim and I have got classes again soon, Sam. We’d like to get some food in our stomachs before we have to go back to learnin’ about tin cans and alien languages, so if you don’t mind, I’mma have to ask you to leave now.”

 

Sam’s eyes widen upon the realization, only looking a tad cowed by the Georgia doctor’s gruff dismissal. “Right. Yeah, sorry. I’ll see you Friday. And thanks for hearing me out,” he says, adding the second bit a little more quietly. “See ya, little brother.” He gives Jim a brief, halting wave and then walks out the door.

 

Jim’s eyes stay on the door long after it’s shut and his brother has left, almost mesmerized or haunted by the space. The trance is broken when Bones wraps an arm around his waist and pulls him close. Jim leans into his embrace, letting his head fall onto Bones’ shoulder in a way that seems so natural to him by now. Slowly Leonard pulls him closer, enveloping him in that familiar and soothing embrace. Jim sags into his arms, feeling tired in a way that has nothing to do with aching bones from the hand-to-hand combat course he’d had earlier in the day or the lack of sleep he’s gotten in the past week.

 

The tiredness isn’t in his bones or his muscles, but in his heart and his mind. It’s the worst kind of tired because he knows not even sleep will fix it. He doesn’t know what will, although being with Bones is a good start.

 

Bones knows how to cure anything and everything, so Jim just sinks into his comforting embrace, content to stand there for a few moments.

 

“I’m proud of you, darlin’,” Bones murmurs as he strokes his hair. Jim’s thumbs trace lazy circles across the small of his love’s back as he listens to his soothing voice speak softly into Jim’s ear. The tension in his body fades and Jim presses his face further into the coarse red fibers of Bones’ uniform as he lets that deep, lilting voice bring him back to himself before they head out to eat and return to the monotony of Academy life.

 


End file.
